Friday, July 21, 2006

Peter MacKay: Whiny-ass titty baby.

Dear Pete:

You know, after your government gives almost the entire Canadian media the finger, it takes one serious amount of nerve to bitch and moan when that same media have to go elsewhere for their information.

One way to solve this problem...hold honest and non-biased press conferences with the media instead of wanting to throw reporters in jail who fail to follow the CPC 5-point plan as the moronic Colin Mayes suggested earlier this year. McKay is a dolt.

Regarding those "hourly updates on the status of operations" you say Steve was getting.Did none of them include the information he was mounting his personal rescue operation in the wrong friggin country?

G&M : "But the rescue mission ended up adding confusion and delay to an evacuation effort that was already running into serious snags, and that was shifting its focus from Cyprus to Turkey, where most of the Canadians, who could number as many as 50,000, will be brought.

A special diplomatic effort was needed, involving dozens of officials, to shift schedules so that at least some Canadians would arrive in Cyprus during the PM's visit."

As a member of the PPG, I must disagree with SOME of what you're saying. MacKay is actually doing a decent job in the past couple weeks. He has been the face of this crisis and whether you agree or disagree with the government's stand, MacKay has done a fairly decent job defending and communicating it. This is a bit of a surprise victory for MacKay as he is not known as the sharpest knife in the drawer. As far as the Globe and Mail piece, it was bang on and even MacKay knows that. The letter was merely a push back to the media. A warning (no doubt written by the PMO) that they are willing to fight back publicly if we dare to report anything that puts them in a bad light. What news consumers need to realize is that the vast majority of us, just don't care what they think of us. We didn't care under the Liberals and we don't care under the Conservatives. You'll notice none of that letter actually says the story is not true. This government, through its absolutely amateurish communications strategies, has forced the media to rely more on "anonymous" sources. There is a hint of irony in this. Because they are trying so desperately to control the media, they are quickly losing any control of their message. Every journalist prefers information on the record, but expect to see more off-the-record reporting. Public servants are starting to talk to us and I don't expect it will be too long before members of caucus start giving us substantive information on the condition of anonymity. In other words, the non-cooperative strategy of Sandra Buckler et al will bite them in the balls. I'm sure that will be used as further illogical evidence that the PPG is biased against a Conservative government. In reality, it has nothing to do with bias. It is merely the price any government pays when they force journalists to get their information from anonymous insiders.